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los campesinos! + the orion experience @ maxwell’s

It’s not a trip back home without a visit to Maxwell’s. Tonight I took my sister to her first rock show (and my first in some time– its been far too long since I’ve seen “live” music that consisted of more than a dude in front of a laptop or a coop jam session). It did not disappoint. I first discovered Los Campesinos! because of their animated music videos, but it turns out that they are one attractive band (their other videos attest to this). So I got to introduce lil’ sis to my favorite Maxwell’s ritual: its cozy enough that even if the music is lame, you can always content yourself ogling the cute boys and girls with guitars. Luckily in this case, the performance was fantastic, and the crowd great. I love shows in Jersey cuz people aren’t afraid to be enthusiastic. There was much dancing and cheering, and in a unsuccessful but valiant effort for an encore, even something of a sing-along.

I’m seriously all crushed out. Campesinos! are adorable; they sound like what when I was 15 I had hoped college would feel like. Sort of obnoxiously indie but so sweet that you have to smile. Anyway, tonight was the beginning of Campesinos! US tour. They’ve got shows in most of the cities that I have friends in, so if you dig indie-pop (think Apples in Stereo), definitely check em out.

The Orion Experience – The Cult of Dionysus
[audio:http://www.rrrojer.net/share/music/TheCultofDionysus.mp3]
The Orion Experience – Obsessed With You
[audio:http://www.rrrojer.net/share/music/ObsessedWithYou.mp3]
Los Campesinos! – My Year in Lists
[audio:http://www.rrrojer.net/share/music/MyYearInLists.mp3]

Do you see what is going on here? The IMF’s bailout is not marked for Ukrainian social services or any other benefit to the citizenry. All that is about to be taken away, in the neoliberal style. The bailout money goes to Kiev and back out again to the Western financial institutions holding Ukrainian debt. In effect, debt held by private-sector creditors is transferred to the IMF, which uses it to leverage Ukraine into a free-market model via its standard conditionality: No austerity, no dough.

Must read piece by Mychal Denzel Smith and Jesse Myerson in The Nation, featuring both sober historical analysis and concrete proposals to organize around (Job & Income Guarantee, Land Value Tax, and Baby Bonds):

Before laying out our proposals, we should clarify why, historically, eliminating racism requires an economic program. America’s story is one of economic exploitation driving the creation and maintenance of racism over time. The inception of our country’s economic system condemned black people to an underclass for a practical rather than bigoted reason: the exploitation of African labor. Imported Africans were prevented by customs and language barriers from entering into contracts, and unlike the indigenous population, their lack of familiarity with the terrain prevented them from running away from their slavers. To morally justify an economy dependent on oppression, in a nation newly founded on the rights of men to freedom, it was necessary to socially construct a biological fiction called race, one that deemed some people subhuman, mere property.